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Looking at my time in graduate school, any success I have enjoyed is due to the people around me.  First, I can not imagine having an advisor other than Leo Reyzin.  Ignoring his technical abilities (though the more I learn, the more I appreciate Leo's technical skills), Leo is the greatest reason I am completing my graduate work.  Through the last six years, Leo put my needs and goals foremost.  I was always encouraged to work on problems that interested me.  I am most thankful for the honesty of our conversations.  If I did something wrong, Leo would tell me and explain how to change my behavior.  I knew where I stood. Advice was always honest and considered.  

The first couple of years were the hardest for me.  It would have been easy to give up on me.  Leo was critical in getting through this period.
We had nuanced and tough conversations about my abilities, my probability of success, and how best to achieve my goals.  

In addition to Leo, I am lucky to work with coauthors that constantly surprise and impress me with their creativity.  John Bannick, Ran Canetti, Joe Cooley, Rob Cunningham, Ariel Hamlin, Kyle Ingols, Roger Khazan, Adam O'Neill, Xianrui Meng, Omer Paneth, Galen Pickard, Lee Rossey, Adam Smith, Merrielle Spain, and Tamara Yu challenge my thinking and allow me to see problems from different perspectives.  

Ran Canetti, Sharon Goldberg, Steve Homer, Leonid Reyzin, and Daniel Wichs have helped refine and produce much of the research contained in this dissertation.  My committee is full of talented researchers who are caring, consideration, and inspire the expansion of knowledge.

I have engaged in important technical discussions with many others including~(I am sure this list is woefully incomplete): Jacob Alperin-Sheriff, Alexandra Berkoff, Nir Bitansky, Venkat Chandar, Nishanth Chandran, Kai-Min Chung, Yevgeniy Dodis, Nico D\"{o}ttling,  Sebastian Faust, P\'{e}ter G\'{a}cs, Chun-Yuan Hsiao, Gene Itkis, Feng-Hao Liu, Danielle Micciancio, Christopher Peikert, Krzysztof Pietrzak, Oded Regev, Emily Shen, Salil Vadhan, Mayank Varia, Daniel Wichs, Sophia Yakoubov, Arkady Yerukhimovich, and Angela Zottarel.

The BU security group created a fluid and fun environment to do taxing research.  Thanks to  Foteini Baldimtsi, Raef Bassily, Kyle Brogle, Yilei Chen, Danny Cooper, Jeff Finklestein, Phillipa Gill, Jef Guarente, Ethan Heilman, Abhishek Jain, Bhavana Kanukurthi, Rachel Lin, Robert Lychev, Aanchal Malhotra, Xianrui Meng, Kobbi Nissim, Omer Paneth, Dimitris Papadopoulos, Oxana Poburinnaya, Davide Proserpio, Adam O'Neill, Sofya Raskhodnikova, Natali Ruchansky, Adam Smith, Nikos Triandopoulos,  Rita Vald, Sachin Vasant, Sophia Yakoubov, and Angela Zotteral!

In addition, the staff at BU was wonderful my entire time.  Charles, Chris, Ellen, Jennifer, Nora, Theresa, and Wes cleared hurdles from my path and let me focus on research.

While at Boston University, I worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and received mentorship from many great and experienced researchers.  Of particular note are Rob Cunningham, Jon Herzog, Gene Itkis, and Roger Khazan.  
Rob has encouraged me throughout this entire process.  From the moment I arrived at Lincoln, he deftly balanced my educational goals with project needs.  Rob and I met weekly to discuss paper writing and how to organize thoughts.  Rob changed graduate school from a possibility to a necessity.  Roger helped build and expand my scientific exploration.  With Roger, I wrote my first paper as the primary researcher.  This process had significant growing pains.  It was a challenge to have my ideas rephrased, streamlined, and changed.  Looking back, this process was important and necessary for my intellectual growth.  Jon served as my mentor for the majority of my graduate studies.  He served as an independent source of advice to navigate political and intellectual issues.  Lastly, Gene has helped me understand the practical importance of the research contained in this dissertation.  Together, we explored the problem space and identified important parameters.

My family and friends have been instrumental in reaching this point.  It is impossible to list all the important influences on my life but thanks to Ange, Brendan, Chris, Don, Hanah, Josh, John, Julie, Ken, Krystal, Lisa, Matt, Melissa, Merrielle, Reed, Suzy, and Yasha.   Lisa, Merrielle, and Natali pushed me through the writing process.  There were many late night panicked phone calls; they were a source of steady and continual support.  I am blessed with friends that always pick up the phone.  My support system instilled the foolish notion that I would finish this dissertation.

Lastly,  none of this would have been possible without tremendous support and love from my parents Jeff and Susan.  They always backed my choices.  Nothing has off-limits or impossible.  They encouraged exploration.  Perhaps most importantly, they instilled the importance of hard work and showing up.  To quote Randy Pausch, I won the ``the parent lottery.''

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